


The Neighborhood

by scibher



Series: Any time, any place [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Human, Bad Parenting, Child Abuse, First Kiss, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Incest (kind of), M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-16 14:45:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15439389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scibher/pseuds/scibher
Summary: Michael Shurley unwillingly returns home from college to find his drunk father gone, as usual. It doesn't take long for him to sink back into the tired rhythm of the neighborhood and the life he tried to leave behind. His almost-brother Lucifer reminds him of why he should have stayed.





	1. Laika

**Author's Note:**

> Please read the tags before reading.  
> Hope you enjoy.

Michael leaned his head on the bus window, letting it lull his brain close to concussion as it rattled frantically.

He hadn’t bothered mentioning when his flight got into Salt Lake Airport. He had told his father when the summer semester ended in a formal, stilted letter that the man hadn’t replied to. None of his brothers had a car, and only one could drive anyway- and when he had left the rotted corpse of this suburbia that he supposed was his home, he had no friends who would be willing to pick him up.

The bus stopped twenty minutes from his house. He thanked the bus driver as he left, backpack heavy on his shoulders, cheap suitcase loud as he dragged it across the ground. He ended up carrying it the rest of the way, sweating in the early summer heat. He felt that old, familiar dread as he turned down the road.

His neighborhood. The streets were relics of those post-war days when cheap houses were thrown up in the space of a few hours. There was a rectangle on a map, so uniform he could have outlined it with a ruler, where those houses of bygone days remained. The areas surrounding it had once been part of the then-innovative suburbia, but most of them were eventually demolished and built anew. McMansions surrounded the left side of the rectangle. Smaller, but still nice houses surrounded the right. Michael’s house was fairly in the middle of the rectangle, identical to the houses around it- one floor, one bathroom, three bedrooms, same layout. The shades of the small lawns were one of the only differences between them. As he walked, he saw two optimistic green lawns, a handful of yellow, and plenty brown, the residents letting their gardens fry in the unforgiving sun.

He passed Ms. Baker on his way, moving backwards and forwards on the rocking chair she had dragged onto her porch years before he was born. Rumor had it she used to smile at people and give full-size chocolate bars to kids on Halloween. Then her own two kids had died within a year of each other, both ran over- one on his way to music school in Seattle, the other on his way to an engineering apprenticeship in the city. Now she sat and rocked in the old wooden chair, no matter the weather, until nightfall. He’d never seen her smile. Like everyone else on the street, she couldn’t give a shit whether anyone lived or died.

He heard the front door slam shut once he was a few houses away. His father strode out of the house, face red with anger and bag hiked high on his shoulder. Michael swallowed, feet slowing to a stop as his father flung the trunk of the old car open. He looked up as he slammed it shut, eyes chancing upon Michael. He froze for a moment, before curling his lip up in what looked like disgust. With a slam and a jerking cough, the car was off, trailing the dead leaves that had fallen from the trees and a leaden petrol cloud behind it.

He couldn’t help but be reminded of the last time he was here. It was early September. He’d stood on the curb outside the house with the same suitcase he had now. His father had left in April- Michael saw no reason for him to come back now. Raphael watched from the kitchen window, having already said goodbye. When he’d heard Michael had gotten into Princeton, with a generous scholarship at that, his eyes had shone with hope for what might have been the first time in all his twelve years. Gabriel was copying Lucifer (as eight-year olds were wont to do with their favorite siblings) and hadn’t spoken a word to him that day. As his ride pulled up (Anna Milton, a fellow freshman on a scholarship, who, during their email exchanges, had offered to pick him up on her way from California), Gabriel ran out of the house to almost knock him over with a ferocious hug. A second car pulled up as Anna helped him lift the suitcase into the trunk and Gabriel kept his arms around his waist. When he saw the car, he’d ran back inside.

His father had climbed out, clearly drunk. He sneered at them, spat in their general direction, and then stumbled into the house.

Michael had been mortified. Anna’s wide eyes got wider. He had rested his head on the window as she drove, watching the browns and yellows transition to greens and the dust that seemed to cover every surface lift. His face had been burning with shame, turned away so Anna couldn’t see.

They didn’t talk until they’d reached the Colorado border. Then she told him, in a quiet voice, eyes pinned to the road, about her own father and her own dusty suburbs. She wasn’t an LA girl- her red hair and pale skin had told him that already. She lived a few miles away from Silicon Valley, and like him she had never seen green stretch as far as the eye could see. She even pushed up her sleeves when they stopped for gas to show him the bruises her father had left there, stark and cruel on her soft skin. Like his family, hers hadn't celebrated her university place in the way most would. She’d told him that an absent father was better than an abusive one. It was in a cheap motel in Missouri, lying in their separate beds in the dark, that he told her about his own bruises, faded from skin but not from memory. She’d been silent. He thought she’d fallen asleep until she’d rolled over, eyes barely visible in the dim light. She was just as much a fallen angel as he was, damned to a dying suburb but desperately trying to claw her way out.

They remained close when they got to Princeton. They had morning classes at the same time- she had music while he had maths- and they walked from their dormitory building in the frosty mornings. It was an odd friendship, completely devoid of sexual tension (despite what people thought), cemented in that pale Missouri morning when they had sat on the hood of the car in the motel parking lot, watching the sun rise to set the dew that had settled on the grass alight. They had been silent, stunned with the awe of something so fresh and green and _new._

She was staying in New Jersey over the summer. An internship at a law firm that they’d both applied for. He hadn’t been angry or jealous that she had gotten it. He didn’t even want to be a lawyer. Neither of them did.

He just didn’t want to go home.

Lucifer was in the kitchen as he walked in, the same way he had been when Michael’s acceptance letter had arrived. Lucifer opened his mail a lot of the time- they were close back then, and Michael didn’t mind. He’d walked into the kitchen, yawning in the morning light, and saw Lucifer sitting, empty plate and the opened letter in front of him.

Michael had ran a hand through Lucifer’s hair fondly, humming as he made breakfast. He’d sat opposite him with his burnt toast before he picked up the letter and read it.

He put down the letter with a mixture of shock and delight on his face. Lucifer had stood.

“I hate you,” he’d said cooly.. Then he stormed to their shared room and threw Michael’s belongings into the hallway.

They’d shared the room since Raphael had been born, though technically Michael’s room was the largest room, shared with Raphael, and Gabriel when he’d came along. Lucifer had the box room, barely able to fit a bed and a wardrobe. They’d shared it anyway, until his father had burst in one day when he had been thirteen and Lucifer had been twelve. He’d dragged Michael up from his slumber, roaring at him while Michael rubbed sleep from his eyes. Then he started beating him, hard punches that landed on his eye, his cheek, the side of his forehead. The third one knocked him down, gasping and terrified, while his father had muttered as he poured himself a drink, downed it, and left.

Lucifer had been at his side the second the front door slammed. He'd pressed kisses to his cheeks and forehead while Michael sobbed breathlessly, tears running down his face. Gabriel, just a toddler, howled in his crib. Raphael, six years old, had shivered on his unmade bed until they went to find him, silent tears falling from his wide brown eyes.

From then on they only slept in the same bed when their father wasn’t there. That night had been one of those nights. Lucifer clung to him as they slept lightly, both fearing the roar of the old car as their father pulled up.

Until the letter came. Michael slept in his own bed after that- or, more accurately, Raphael’s, who had taken his old bed. Gabriel slept above him, snoring softly. The sheets felt cold.

Lucifer glanced up at him as he walked in. No plate was in front of him. Just a book.

“Dad’s gone,” he said, and Michael nearly collapsed in relief. They were the first words his brother had said in months, having almost completely ignored him since the letter had arrived (‘pass the salt’ had been said to him three weeks before he’d left for Princeton. Nothing since then. Not even an acknowledgement of the cards Michael had sent for Christmas, his eighteenth birthday, and his graduation).

“I know.” He set his suitcase down, arm strained. “I saw him leave.”

Lucifer snorted, looking down at the book. “Did he give you a kick in the stomach? A nice little welcome-home gift?”

Michael set his backpack down. “No,” he said coldly. “He didn’t say anything.”

“What a shame,” Lucifer said. As always, his words managed to be even colder. “You could have settled right back in. Taking hits, not fighting back or even protecting yourself. Should make you feel right back at home.”

Michael’s nostrils flared. “Here we fucking go.”

“Here we go indeed,” Lucifer said, flipping a page of the book casually.

“You know where I come from,” Michael said poisonously, grabbing the book and slamming it on the counter. “You know why I don’t fight back. He didn’t need to take me in-”

“Kind of did, his name was there on the birth certificate-”

“I would have been a baby in the system, Lucifer- who knows what type of life I would have had-”

“One with a nice family who adopted you, maybe. The old man couldn’t give a shit about you, Michael- he just wanted a punching bag and a souvenir from his days spent fucking heroin addicts-”

Michael slammed his fist into the counter. The cheap material shook loudly. For most people that would have been the end of the argument.

But they weren’t most people.

“And what are you to him then, Lucifer?” Michael asked heatedly, pouring orange juice into a glass. The fridge was nearly empty, he noticed dully. “What are you a souvenir of?”

“My mother,” Lucifer replied. Michael laughed.

“Your mother,” he repeated almost kindly as he screwed the lid back on the orange juice. “Maybe. Same eyes, same hair. You should be the one respecting him. He had _no_ reason to take you in, other than to remind him of your whore mother.”

Lucifer jumped from his seat, teeth bared. “ _Fuck_ you.”

“Go fuck your degenerate friends.” He dropped the carton back into the fridge as Lucifer picked up his book.

“Maybe I will,” his brother snarled, though Michael knew he would do no such thing. He slid the glass of juice across the table to him.

“Drink this first,” he spat. “Vitamin C.”

He picked up his luggage as Lucifer chugged the juice angrily, glaring at his back as he stalked down the hallway to his old room.

He flung open the cheap door which swung, nearly torn from its hinges. Gabriel and Raphael were both in there, clearly having listened to their argument. Still, Gabriel jumped at him with a delighted cry, wrapping his arms and legs around him like a koala. Michael dropped his suitcase to hug him back.

Raphael came forward after Gabriel climbed down, wrapping his arms around him in a polite hug.

“Missed you,” he said in Raphael’s ear. Then he straightened up, returning Gabriel’s excited grin that beamed down on him from the top bunk. “Missed both of you.”

“We missed you, too,” Raphael said, while Gabriel used a chubby hand to mess up his hair for no apparent reason other than excitement. “Even Lucifer.”

Michael blinked, not sure whether to believe him or not. He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted by the front door slamming.

“Yeah,” he said tonelessly. “I missed him too.”


	2. Power Out

He spent a lot of that first day back wishing he was anywhere else. Gabriel curled next to him as they watched TV, the sounds and images fuzzier than they should be. Raphael sat cross-legged on the armchair, book open in his lap. How he didn’t get a headache with the muffled sounds from their cheap television set was a mystery to him. A package came for Lucifer around midday. Remembering the day his acceptance letter had arrived, he set it to the side.

He sent them off to bed after fixing them dinner- a pathetic dinner, one can of soup between them. There was just one other can in the cupboard, standing next to a bottle of mustard that had been there for as long as he could remember. That would be for Lucifer whenever he decided to return. In the meantime, as he grimly noted that no money and no clue about when his father would return had been left, he would have to get a job.

It wasn’t uncommon for his father to leave. He’d been doing it since Gabriel was born, leaving for days at a time at first, moving up to weeks and eventually months once Michael was fourteen. He used to leave money for him to buy food. The first few times it had been what passed for a fortune for an eleven-year-old who had grown up poor. They’d been able to order pizza, twice, and he’d saved the change to buy Lucifer a yo-yo. That generosity diminished quickly. By thirteen he was buying weeks’ worth of groceries, walking past the fresh food to the cheapest tinned, stocking up and counting pennies as he tried to make it last. 

And now there was nothing. So he fetched a pad of paper, crumpled and down to the last few pages. He began writing a CV. A lot of people in the town hadn’t been out of the state- most of the people living in the McMansions worked an hour’s drive away, somewhere in the nearest big city. He knew some of the places he handed his CV into would throw it out immediately, offended by the very idea of some Princeton snob working for them. Some would accept him right away, wanting to increase their perceived prestige. Others, he imagined, would hire him purely out of spite, wanting to put the archetypal College Boy to work.

He started flipping through the phonebook once his CV was halfway done, dry pages crinkling as he made notes on the numbers and addresses he might have some luck at. When he went to wash his face- just using water, as a year of using his roommate’s expensive wash made the prospect of rubbing a bare bar of soap on his cheeks daunting- he heard the front door open and close, footsteps walking around the living room.

He swallowed. Was it Lucifer or his father? He hadn’t done anything wrong. The house was clean, the kids in bed. No need to fear his father.

He still felt relieved when, after spending a few minutes staring into the mirror and steeling himself, it was Lucifer’s head that he saw, bent as he looked at something.

Michael moved quietly about the kitchen, pouring the soup into a pot, putting the pot on the stove. He sat down at the sofa again, glancing at his brother. The package had been opened, with what he assumed was its contents open on Lucifer’s lap.

His brother didn’t acknowledge him. He never did after a fight. Butter-coloured hair, nothing like the rest of his brothers’, shielded his eyes. Michael looked away.

The rest of them looked something like their father, Chuck. Gabriel had his golden-brown hair. Raphael had the careful shape of his eyes. Michael had the colour of his eyes, hazel that tended to the side of green. But Lucifer, of course, looked nothing like any of them. He looked like his mother, who had met Michael’s father when she was four months pregnant. He’d been so entranced that he didn’t question why such a beautiful, other-worldly woman would want to stick around a comparatively average man. Michael’s mother had died on the same day Lucifer was born. Overdose. Seeing the two crying babies, Lucifer newborn and Michael close to his first birthday, Lucifer’s mother had got into the car and didn’t look back. Chuck had moved to their current house soon after, unable to even look at another woman for years. He kept a picture of her in his bedside table drawer. She was unsmiling, her cheekbones and expression cut from marble.

Michael sniffed quietly. The smell of smoke and alcohol clung to his clothes, but not to his breath. He knew what Lucifer was like at parties, not participating while the people he called his friends drink themselves into a stupor, watching on with idle amusement. Vanity was created for people like Lucifer, who were too good to allow a cigarette to blacken his lungs, or a drink damage his liver. Any number of his no-good, loud-mouthed friends would be happy to kiss him, and to go further with no repayment. But Lucifer never let them. Michael had seen him at a party they’d both attended, standing amidst them, laughing lightly at their jokes but deflecting their lingering hands with his own elegant one. His eyes had fixed on Michael’s as one girl, Ruby, had pressed her lips to his neck. He’d danced out the way easily, tall while they staggered, prince of the damned.

Michael reached for the glossy brochure he had in his lap. Lucifer let him take it, watching him carefully as he flipped the pages.

“Cambridge?” he said in surprise, seeing the front of the brochure. “England Cambridge?”

“Yes.” His brother’s voice was careful, quiet. Unafflicted by alcohol, just as he expected.

He flipped to the course list. “Natural Sciences,” he said, reading what Lucifer had underlined.

“Yes.”

“You want to go to _Cambridge?_ ” he asked, handing the brochure back. “I thought you weren’t interested in further education.”

“I wasn’t.” Lucifer flipped back to the natural science pages, bending back over the course description.

Michael bit his lip, wondering whether to ask him to elaborate. Lucifer had always had perfect grades, like him, but no interest in school. Cambridge was above Princeton in rankings. Maybe that was it.

“What made you interested?” He kept his tone light, friendly- the tone of a big brother. A tone he’d never really used with Lucifer before.

“I looked out the window.”

Michael bit down on his lip in annoyance at the enigmatic answer. But then Lucifer looked him dead in the eyes.

“I saw what my future would look like if I stayed here. And I didn’t like what I saw.”

He swallowed. Lucifer reached for his leg, of all things. Michael didn’t have a chance to react before his hand drew away again, fingers circled around the pen Michael had put in his pocket. He began underlining.

“Anyway, I saw you leave. You seemed pretty happy about it.”

“No,” Michael said. “I- I didn’t-”

“Relax, Michael. I’m not mad anymore.”

Maybe he _had_ smoked something at the party.

“I’m going to use this year, and maybe next year too, to work.” He looked up, gave him a rare smile. Michael hadn’t seen him smile since before the acceptance letter had arrived. “Save money, you know? Maybe move somewhere with a better minimum wage.”

Michael understood. They’d played this subtle game for years. It was like a dance, or a game of tennis. Lucifer would lead, and Michael would follow.

“New Jersey has a higher minimum wage,” he said. Lucifer’s eyebrow arched.

“Oh?” Lucifer folded the corner of the page, setting the brochure to the side. “But the rent is higher, I imagine.”

“In general,” Michael agreed. “But I’m going into private accommodation next year. Cheaper that way.”

“Interesting.” Lucifer put a finger to his chin. “Private accommodation. With a friend, I assume?”

He knew he was faking it. Lucifer knew this already. Michael had spent hours pouring over letters filled with tedious detail in the first few months away, all sent to Lucifer with no response. He’d told him about sharing an apartment with Anna next year. He was too proud to ask; he wanted Michael to offer.

“With a friend,” Michael confirmed with a nod of his head. “And I’m paying half the rent. You’d be able to save all your money. In two years you’ll be rich.”

“Well,” Lucifer said, giving him another easy smile. “I’ll contribute to the groceries, of course.”

It was that easy to be settled. Neither of them mentioned the two brothers sleeping down the hall. Michael knew Lucifer loved them as much as he did. He looked at the back of his head as he poured the hot soup into a bowl, and knew Lucifer was as desperate to get out as he had been.

He didn’t doubt for a second that Lucifer could get in. He was clever, charming, and had plenty of time to prepare for an application. Cambridge was far, worlds away from their cramped, dark house in Utah. Maybe it was some sort of payback. They’d talked about leaving together often, staring at the glowing stars Lucifer had stuck to his room, edges peeling in the damp heat. And then that damned letter had come, and he’d driven away in someone else’s car to a university that was two thousand miles away, leaving Lucifer stuck at home.

Maybe that was why Lucifer hadn’t talked to him for over a year.

Michael watched him eagerly slurp his soup fondly. His own stomach felt like it was cramping with hunger, but it was worth it. He bent back over his CV.

Lucifer had once told him that Michael was one of the few people he could truly _see._ He hadn’t elaborated, and Michael hadn’t asked him to. He thought of that night often as he lay alone in his dorm room, his dormmate snoring softly. That had been a few weeks before the letter had arrived. He could close his eyes and still feel the cold fingers ghosting over his hip, feel soft hair brushing his own warm hand as he rested it on his neck. They’d stared at each other, cheeks resting on the same pillow, lips just a breath apart. It was the closest they’d ever came to crossing that shakily drawn line between them- that odd, half-formed thing that they never tried to address, only existing in fleeting moments that he would later try to forget. Tender brushes on his cheek, through his hair; glances that would linger too long.

He’d almost been _sure_ that Lucifer would lean in, maybe, and-

But one of the peeling stars had given up, floating down and landing between them. Lucifer had laughed, rolling over and shuffling backwards to press against him while they slept.

His brother was like those childish stars he had on his ceiling. Even when he’d been thousands of miles away, getting illegally drunk on cheap wine, working hard, clipping away at the rough edges of his accent and trying to forget where he came from, coming back home to this hell still felt like the brighter option, so long as Lucifer was there.

He had taken him to a museum when he was twelve and Lucifer was eleven. His father had been home with the other two, and they took a train to a nearby city. They had walked around hand-in-hand, giddy at being so far from home by themselves. They’d walked around, pointing to animal skulls and oddly shaped pots.

“That’s you.”

“No, that’s _you_!”

Then Lucifer had pointed to a cracked vase put back together with melted gold. “That’s both of us,” he’d said, pointing.

He was pretty sure Lucifer didn’t remember that anymore. Not the vase, or the day in general. But Michael remembered, and he thought of it often.

“Michael.”

His head snapped up. Lucifer was watching him with an unreadable expression. Had he been talking out loud…?

“Yeah?”

He didn’t respond straight away.

“Sorry about before.”

That was a surprise. Lucifer rarely apologized- let alone with such a serious expression on his face.

“It’s fine,” he said, because it was, and he wasn’t sure what else he’d say anyway. “I’m sorry, too.”

“No. I provoked you. I’m sorry.”

“Lucifer,” he said, trying to sound as oddly stern as he did. “It’s fine.”

Then Lucifer took his head in his hands, pulling him closer. His lips landed on Michael’s cheek, the corners of their mouths touching as he pressed a kiss there.

“Thanks for the soup,” he said, and Michael didn’t trust his voice enough to speak. He sat still while Lucifer washed the bowl, eyes glued to his CV.

“Night, Michael.”

“Goodnight, Luce.”

He went to bed soon after the bedroom door shut softly. His CV wasn’t done, but he doubted he could get much more done.

Because he was tired. That was the only reason.

He was so tired, in fact, that he couldn’t sleep for four more hours, lying awake and definitely not thinking about his brother down the hall.


	3. Tunnels

He managed to get two job offers- one in a supermarket chain, the other assisting an ex-army odd-job man who worked in the nearby town. He would carry buckets of plaster, tools, clean up after the man and wash windows. He had an hour between the assistant job and the graveyard shift, which he spent in a local café trying to make his espresso last for the full hour.

Both jobs were miserable. The odd-job man would mutter about his time in the army, telling him how he’d frighten his underlings into behaving while Michael stood uncomfortably, arms straining from whatever he was holding. During his shift in the supermarket, only a small trickle of people would wander into the store, buying odd combinations of things. Shampoo and washing powder. A book, garbage bags, and a carrot. A singular lemon, the woman buying it breathing hard and telling him it was urgent. For the rest of the time, standing as his legs ached, he felt as though him and his coworker were the only ones alive.

He collapsed into bed after the first day with muscles sore beyond reason, falling asleep in seconds. The creaking of the bed woke him a just hours later. He opened his eyes to see Lucifer, leaning up on his elbows as he gave him a confused smile.

“Sorry,” Michael mumbled. He should have left then, but the warm sheets may as well have been adamantine chains.

“Any particular reason you’re here?”

“Mistake. Muscle memory. And Gabriel snores.”

Lucifer smirked. Michael started to shuffle, preparing to climb out, but Lucifer’s hand on his head stopped him.

“You snore too- but quietly.” He climbed out over the top of him. “You can stay.”

Michael mumbled his gratitude, quickly falling asleep.

Every day felt pretty much felt the same after that. His arms would strain as he listened to the veteran drone as he fixed a pipe, plastered a wall, replaced a window. His legs would strain from hours of standing at the till. He’d fall into Lucifer’s bed. He’d wake too soon, and would walk to town with eyes that wanted to slip closed and muscles that wanted him to collapse.

“Jesus Christ,” Lucifer said lazily one morning- up at five, no explanation- as Michael stumbled through the door. “Is that what the working world does to you?”

It was worth it when he got his first paycheck. Sort of. Neither jobs paid particularly well. But he could afford a trip to the grocery store, and Raphael and Gabriel helped him unpack the bags.

“Organic onions?” Gabriel said, face scrunched as he held them.

“Just feel them,” Michael said eagerly, pushing the tins of beans and soup he’d bought before his jobs to the back of the cupboard. He gave his youngest brother a wide grin. “Look at them. Fresh out the ground, pretty much. Dirt still on them. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

“Well, yeah,” Gabriel mumbled as he put them away.

Raphael smiled down happily at the spinach.

The paycheck might have been meager, but a fridge full of food- fresh food- was good enough for him. Lucifer was crunching happily at an apple when he got home from work one night. Raphael surprised them all by making a shockingly good bolognaise on one of Michael’s rare days off. He served it with spaghetti for dinner, topped with fresh basil that Gabriel sniffed at appreciatively.

Days off came to an end, unfortunately. After a few happy hours sleeping with a full stomach and Lucifer’s warm arm wrapped around him, he was holding a tin of paint up for the veteran, counting the minutes until he could leave and space out for an hour.

He ordered a latte to jazz things up. Even the barista seemed surprised.

He was staring off into space, yet again, as he stood behind the till when two of Lucifer’s friends came in shortly after one in the morning. Lilith and Azazel. He watched with cold politeness as Azazel approached. He’d never liked the boy as a person, never mind a supposed friend of his brother’s.

“You guys sell cigarettes, right?” Azazel said as he approached.

“That we do.”

They stared hard at each other for several beats, green-hazel against an unnervingly pale brown.

“You know I’m eighteen,” Azazel said. It came out like a threat.

“I’ll need to see your ID to make sure of that.” Azazel was right- Michael _did_ know he was eighteen. His birthday was just three days after Lucifer’s. But he also knew that Lilith wasn’t eighteen until mid-August- _and_ he knew that turning the overly-aggressive, wretched freak away would give him some satisfaction, no matter how small.

“Come on,” Azazel said, lips curled up in a snarl as he leaned over the counter. He slapped a twenty down. “No need to be difficult about it.”

His coworker, Molly, who had barely said a word to him since he started, was watching with interest now. Azazel’s hands were curled into cruel fists. Michael noted the cuts and bruises on his knuckles-

 _I found out you so much as_ touch _my brother-_

calmly. His own hands were flat on the counter as he kept his cold eyes on Azazel’s baneful ones. Lucifer may have expressed frustration at Michael not fighting back at their father, but the man who raised him was one thing. Scum that clung to his brother was another.

“Fuck this,” Azazel spat. He turned on his heel and stormed away, fists stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.

Lilith didn’t move. She stared at Michael instead. He steeled himself, wondering if he should prepare for her making a running attack at him. No one was that desperate for cigarettes, though. Surely.

Azazel returned minutes later with a rather bored looking Lucifer. He saw Molly straighten up when she saw him.

Lucifer approached the counter with an easy smile that Michael returned. He flicked the twenty across at him. “Come on, Michael. You _definitely_ know I’m eighteen. You sent me a card and everything.”

“That I did. ID, please.”

Lucifer laughed. Azazel was practically steaming with rage as Lucifer leaned on the counter.

“Trying to impress your lovely friend there?” he asked, shooting Molly a brief, charming smile.

“Just trying to follow the law, Luce,” Michael said, adding a mocking weightiness to his tone.

“Tell him to stop fucking around,” Azazel said, arms folded as he stood beside Lilith. Lucifer spun to face him.

“Tell _him_ to shut up,” he told Lilith, giving Azazel a poisonous look. Lilith did.

“Come on,” Lucifer said, tapping the twenty-dollar bill with a finger. Michael raised an eyebrow.

“ID, please.”

“What if I don’t have one?” His eyes were wide and innocent, as though he were asking for Michael to hand him a toy, not cigarettes.

“Then you’d have to walk back home and get it.”

“I could sell you them,” Molly piped up. “You look eighteen to me.”

They both ignored her. A smile was curling onto Lucifer’s face as he looked at his older brother.

“You know how long that walk is,” Lucifer said silkily. There was something dangerous in his voice- a different type of dangerous from Azazel’s. This wasn’t threatening, no- nor frightening, or particularly unpleasant in any way. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.

“I know I do. I walk that walk twice a day.”

Lucifer’s bottom lip disappeared into his mouth. He sucked on it thoughtfully as he watched Michael calmly stand, like an angel guarding the gates to the shitty, shitty heaven of Marlboro.

“I won’t even smoke them- you know that,” Lucifer said lowly, leaning further across the counter. He’d stopped sucking on his bottom lip. It was red, and wet, and it took all of Michael’s willpower to keep looking at his eyes. “You won’t do this one tiny thing for me?”

Michael leaned across the counter too. He saw Molly’s eyebrows shoot into her hairline.

“Secondhand smoke can cause damage too,” he said in the same low tones as Lucifer. “ID or nothing, little brother.”

Lucifer raised his eyebrow in amusement. They both remained where they were for a few beats too long before drawing back almost simultaneously. Lucifer dug into the pockets of his leather jacket. He beckoned at Michael before sliding his hand across. Their hands met. He pressed a plastic rectangle into Michael’s palm, before sliding his hand away again, lightly dragging his nails across Michael’s fingertips.

Michael sighed quietly as he stared down at Lucifer’s ID. He shook his head as he grabbed the cheapest brand of the packs of twenty, passing it to Lucifer along his ID.

Lucifer flung the pack at Azazel before turning back to give Michael a long look, half-formed grin still hanging on his lips. Michael stared back, unable to look away.

“Keep the change,” he said softly, before walking away.

“That’s _my_ money,” Azazel protested weakly, shooting Michael a glare before following them out, Lilith close behind.

The store’s silence was almost unbearable in contrast. He met Molly’s eyes.

“That was your brother?” she asked unbelievingly. In the two weeks he had worked there, it was one of the first conversational things she had said to him.

“Yeah.”

She blinked a few times.  Another customer walked in. He swiped the singular tube of mascara, accepting the exact change they thrust into his hand before running out.

He closed the till after logging in the cigarettes, using some of the change to buy gum and pocketing the rest.

“You two have a weird relationship,” Molly muttered in the new silence.

He gave her a strained smile.

Lucifer was asleep when he got back, curled up in their bed and breathing softly. There was a bowl of leftover spaghetti on the kitchen counter, covered with a dishcloth to protect it from flies. ‘For Michael,’ the note said. He’d drawn four small figures in the bottom corner- two angels holding hands, one with dark hair and the other with scribbled curls, and two demons, one with long hair and one with short, both with burning cigarettes and cruel smiles. Michael snorted. He folded the note carefully as he heated the bowl up.

He didn’t see him at the shop again, but he _did_ see him at the café. Lucifer insisted on buying him the coffee, as well as an overpriced warmed sandwich.

“Why are you being so nice?” Michael asked suspiciously as he wiped up the remaining cheesy crumbs. “What do you want?”

“What do I _want_?” Lucifer repeated back, feigning innocence. He circled his fingers around Michael’s wrist. “What I _want_ is for your wrist not to snap in half. You’re not eating enough, Michael. That’s all.”

He still felt suspicious, but he didn’t protest further.

Work got easier. His muscles didn’t hurt as much, and he got better at tuning out the voice of the veteran. His shift in the shop was still a drag; but Lucifer was usually awake when he got back, sitting on the couch in the dim morning light with a book in his lap, eyes fixing on him as he walked through the door. He could feel them still fixed on him as he moved around the kitchen, preparing something to eat before he slept, or when he’d collapse into the sofa with a sigh, head tilted towards the ceiling. He could feel them burning into his back as he got dressed for work one morning. It was strange. Most people would look away if they were caught watching someone with the intensity Lucifer levied at him- but if he ever turned and caught his eye, Lucifer would just stay staring, something akin to curiosity in his eyes.

He wasn’t sure what that curiosity was. He thought it might be satisfied after Lucifer gave him a shoulder massage, unpracticed fingers digging into his shoulders in a way that was almost painful. He could smell him when he was that close and without their bedsheets masking any smells. It wasn’t that he smelt unpleasant- far from it. He smelt like the earthy tones of the oil Michael had seen him rub into his skin and across his eyelids before he slept (“it’s not _weird_ to want soft skin, Michael.”), mixed with something else. The smell of dew before the sun rose and lifted it from the grass. Maybe.

It was the least relaxing thing he’d ever experienced- and Lucifer’s eyes still lingered on him after.

He went from watching him when Michael initially couldn’t see him to keeping his eyes on him when they made eye contact. Once when he was tending to someone’s garden with the veteran, teeth clenched as he ripped up weeds, he looked across the street to see Lucifer. His hands slowed, and they watched each other silently from across the street.

After he collapsed into the sofa upon arriving home in the way he did- throat arched, face to the ceiling- he lowered his tired gaze to see Lucifer watching him coolly from the kitchen.

Half in jest, half in mild frustration, he held out his arms. _What?_ his posture said. _What do you want?_

Lucifer took some time to respond to his unspoken question. He stayed where he was, just _looking_ at him with an intensity he didn't recognise. It tugged at something in him- something else he couldn’t name, but he could place. It was somewhere between his shadow and his soul, between the momentarily, briefly, barely real and the eternal.

Lucifer moved carefully, slowly. Around the counters in the kitchen. Past the dining table. His fingers trailed across the wide arm of the couch as he looked down at Michael from his vantage point.

Neither of them said anything. He couldn’t say he was particularly surprised when Lucifer sat close, too close, and pressed their lips together. It seemed inevitable, in a way. The only surprising thing was the _way_ in which Lucifer kissed him, with all the fumbling confidence of a first kiss. His lips were soft but unpracticed, not dissimilar to the shoulder massage he’d given him. Not half as painful, though. Not painful at all. 

He kissed him back cautiously, one arm laced loosely around his waist and the other on his cheek. Lucifer pulled back with a surprised look, that odd curiosity still in his eyes.

“Are you angry?” he asked carefully. Michael raised an eyebrow.

“Would I have kissed you back if I was?”

Lucifer blinked. Michael wondered if it _had_ been his first kiss, and whether he’d even been able to tell Michael had kissed him back.

“Can I…”

His fingers were picking at his thumbnail anxiously. Michael remained still, calm.

“Can you what?”

Lucifer swallowed. “Kiss you again?”

He smiled softly, and answered by leaning back in.


	4. Half Light I

Michael sat on the porch after a shift at the grocery store, cigarette burning in his hand.

The lights had been off when he got home. Assuming Lucifer was asleep, he knew it would be more difficult getting to sleep himself when he was alone in the matter. It was much easier when an arm was thrown over his waist and legs tangled with his own. Less easy when he was concentrating on not waking him up.

The veteran he worked for had fired him two days ago. He’d said it wasn’t personal- he just couldn’t afford paying him anymore. Then Gabriel had told him brightly over lunch (which he could have at home now, seeing as he only had his shift at the store) that he wanted to be a trumpet player, just like his mother. Michael had just stared at him mournfully. Raphael wanted to be like his mother too (only god knew why the two of them would want to emulate the women that abandoned them), but at least being a doctor was lucrative. He silently prayed that his pursuit of business would land him a well-paying job. He didn’t particularly care about money himself, but _someone_ needed to fund his little brothers, and that someone wasn’t going to be their dad.

He thought miserably about the money he’d saved over the summer. He’d been planning on using some of it to take Lucifer up north for a day or two- Anna had a connection in Idaho with a woman who’d studied Natural Science in Cambridge. Now he didn’t know whether he could afford that.

He took a long drag on the cigarette, the tip glowing softly in the night.

“Hypocrite,” said a soft voice from the shadows. He froze. Lilith? Azazel?

 His free hand closed into a fist.

But then the person stepped forward. It was just Lucifer, smirking.

“Luce!” He flicked the cigarette away quickly as Lucifer moved forward, tutting slowly with that grin on his face. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Michael, Michael, Michael,” he said, voice warm as he sat on the step below. “Who was it lecturing me on smoking just a few weeks ago?”

“Don’t tell dad.”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t even if he were around. Besides.” He leaned his head on Michael’s knees, and Michael rested his hand in his hair. “There are worse things.”

Now it was Michael’s turn to snort. “Like incest,” he said quietly, not wanting an eavesdropping neighbors to hear.

“Doesn’t count,” Lucifer said quickly. He sat up next to him and pressed their lips together in a brief kiss. “We don’t have the same parents.”

“We were raised as brothers though,” Michael said. Lucifer raised an eyebrow.

“By all means, say the word and we can stop.”

Michael grinned at him. Lucifer’s half-frown melted as Michael leaned in for another kiss, slow and careful.

He was smiling by the time they pulled away, and he lay down on the porch, pulling Michael down with him. Michael opened his mouth to protest- it was risky enough kissing on the porch, never mind having sex- but all Lucifer did was spread his arms, gesturing to the sky above them.

“So, what are you doing outside on a glorious night like this?” he asked dryly. The light pollution meant only a few stars were visible, and the sky had an ugly orange tinge.

“Thinking.”

“Do tell.”

He shouldn’t… but fuck it. They were only young once. “I have this weekend off.” He trailed his fingers up and down Lucifer’s inner arm, watching as goosebumps rose. “I was thinking we rent a car, drive up to Idaho.”

“What’s so special about Idaho?”

“Friend of a friend of a friend lives there.”

“ _Very_ special.”

“Yes, very special. She helped my friend with her application to Princeton. She studied at Cambridge- same thing you want to study.”

Lucifer turned to look at him. He smiled softly, cupping his cheek lightly before kissing him chastely.

“You are a sweetie, Michael.”

Michael hummed in agreement. “Why are you awake, anyway?”

“Went to your work so we could walk back together. The girl you work with- you know, the one who drools all over you? She said you’d already left.”

“You mean the one who drooled all over _you_ ,” Michael said. Lucifer just smirked.

Since they’d started… _being_ together, Michael had wondered about why Lucifer wanted to be with him. He knew why he was attracted to Lucifer. He was scarily clever, and funny, and he was one of the most beautiful people Michael had ever laid eyes on. Knowing he was part of the select few people Lucifer actually cared about was enough to make him fall in love.

But Lucifer… he couldn’t figure it out. He could be with pretty much any girl or guy who swung his way, and out of everyone he went for his brother. But perhaps that was part of the appeal. He knew his brother could be vain, and he knew he thought he was better than this neighborhood in the same way Michael had. What better way to satisfy his vanity than knowing even his own _brother_ couldn’t resist him? And who could blame the water Narcissus looked into for mistaking that loving gaze to be directed at itself?

“Luce?”

Lucifer turned to look at him.

“Why do you kiss me?”

Lucifer rolled his eyes. “Because I love you, idiot.”

“But why do you love me?”

“ _God_ Michael, what’s _up_ with you tonight?” Lucifer shuffled until his face was above Michael’s, elbows on either side of his head. “A myriad of reasons that I’m not feeling soppy enough to go into. Now tell me what’s up.”

He shouldn’t ask. It wasn’t as though Lucifer was required to tell him the truth. But this was _Lucifer,_ and he’d never kept secrets from Lucifer.

Apart from going to college. But still.

“Do you love me, or the idea that even your own brother can’t resist you?”

Lucifer blinked down at him. “Michael,” he said, as though Michael was a slow child. “We’re not brothers.”

“Do you not consider Gabe and Raphael to be your brothers either?”

Lucifer’s face creased in a frown. “Well, yeah, I do.” He rolled off Michael, sitting beside him instead. Michael sat up.

“So why not me?”

Lucifer frowned further. He didn’t look angry. Just confused. “We weren’t raised as brothers.”

“What?” Now Michael was confused. “Yes, we were.”

But Lucifer shook his head. “No, not really. We’ve always been closer than brothers. I mean, you’ve always been my best friend, Mike, but… not exactly a brother.”

Michael looked away. He remembered the first time his father had hit him. Raphael was six months old, and his mother had left their father. Oblivious to his pain, he and Lucifer had played tag in the kitchen, laughing loudly as they chased each other around the dining table. Lucifer had run towards him, arms swinging wildly as he tried to get Michael. His outstretched fingers had knocked over a glass on the table.

Their father had leapt up, crossing over to them with a roar. Michael had opened his mouth to defend Lucifer, to lie and say it had been him- but a loud _smack_ across his face stunned him into silence.

“ _ENCOURAGING YOUR BROTHER TO PLAY STUPID GAMES_ -”

Another smack, this one a backhand across his other cheek. His mouth had hung open- he’d been too shocked to cry. Lucifer had been wailing loudly.

“ _HE COULD HAVE BEEN HURT-_ ”

Yet another smack. This one sent him flying to the floor amongst the shattered glass. His father’s face had been red and furious above him. He’d started crying.

“Clean this up,” his father had muttered, turning away to tend to Raphael, wailing in his crib. Lucifer had clung to him, their teary cheeks pressed together.

Now he looked at Lucifer blankly, seeing only the shadows of his jaw and cheekbones, the shining eyes. He wondered whether Lucifer had wiped that day and the many others like it from his memory, opting instead for a clean, false version of their shared childhood. He wondered whether Lucifer only remembered those quiet moments, alone in their bedroom, instead of them sobbing amongst broken glass on the kitchen floor. Their father had started drinking after that day.

Or had he? He couldn’t remember him drinking before that, but… that didn’t seem to make sense. Michael could faintly remember a happier time, a golden time, when his father had drank what had looked like liquid sunshine…

But the whiskey he drank wasn’t pretty. It was murky, ugly simply for the fact it polluted his father with some alien anger.

“I’ve always thought of you as my brother,” he said. Lucifer took his hand. He pressed their palms together.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. But I’ve always thought that we’re _made_ for each other. You know?”

His shining eyes were childishly wide as his face turned back up. Michael smiled. That much he could relate to.

He didn’t answer, opting instead to lean forward to kiss him. The world around them was still, holding in its breath.

He stood after a while, holding out his hand. “Come on. We can’t stay out here all night.”

Lucifer fell asleep before him, as usual. His naked side was pressed against Michael, a hand twisted in his hair and another at his hip. Possessive.

It reassured him.

He divided his money in two piles the next day, sitting cross-legged on the floor while Lucifer read on their bed. One pile for him and Lucifer, one for Raphael and Gabriel.

He explained to Raphael why they were going to be gone that weekend. Raphael listened solemnly, his small face stoic. 

“We both have sleepovers on Saturday,” he said when Michael was done. Michael shook his head.

“We’ll be away on Friday night.”

“Oh.” Raphael stood when Michael did, nodding gravely at him. As Michael turned to change into his shop uniform, Raphael’s face slipped.

“Mike?”

Michael looked back. “Yeah?”

Raphael looked troubled. His teeth were gnawing on his bottom lip, eyes wide and nervous. Michael swallowed. He hadn’t seen him and Lucifer, had he? The thought of it…

“What is it, Raph?”

“When’s dad coming back?”

He hadn’t felt relived at the mention of their father in a long time.

“I don’t know.”

The question bothered him for the rest of the week as he stood behind the counter, staring listlessly into space and wishing Lucifer would come visit him.

He knew he had no real reason to be so scared at the thought of his dad coming back. He’d been responsible. He’d taken on two jobs to keep food in the fridge, for crying out loud.

Knowing that didn’t help calm his nerves.

He called a car hire a couple towns over on Wednesday, and they agreed to drive the car over on Thursday. Gabriel stood in the doorway while they packed.

“Why can’t I come?” he asked, a touch of whininess creeping into his voice. Lucifer shot Michael a secret smile before going to the living room, running his hand through Gabriel’s hair as he passed.

“You’ve got to keep Raphael company while we’re gone,” he said, winking at Michael as he left. Gabriel collapsed onto the bed with a loud, annoyed groan.

His Thursday shift passed almost unbearably slowly. He tapped his fingers, cracked his knuckles, counted the packs of gum. Molly watched him silently.

Lucifer came in five minutes before his shift ended, and both him and Molly perked up. He sat on the counter, rearranging the packs of gum as he told Michael about the party he’d been at. Michael leaned against the counter, grinning up at him, laughing at his jokes.

The five minutes passed, and Lucifer grabbed his hand.

“Come on,” he said, dragging Michael to clock out and over to the door. “We’ve got to get you out that awful uniform."

Michael smirked before he saw Molly’s raised eyebrow.

“Into pajamas,” he said quickly, and Lucifer snorted. Molly just narrowed her eyes as Lucifer pulled him outside, not letting go of his hand.

They half-ran, half-walked home, giddy with excitement. The car had arrived during his shift- it wasn’t fancy, or a particularly notable car, but it was nicer than the one their dad had. Lucifer posed on the hood while Michael unlocked the door in the dark. A smile curled on his lips when he saw.

“Come on, idiot,” Michael said fondly, pulling Lucifer up and kissing him before they went inside.

They left the next morning, Raphael and Gabriel waving on the porch as they peeled away in the hired car. A neighbor watched on dully. Michael knew he didn’t have to worry about them asking questions about why two kids were being left home alone overnight. There had been exactly one instance of anyone in the neighborhood giving a shit, ever. Police had been called one night, after shouts and screams from a few houses down had echoed through the streets. Michael had watched through the window as the police knocked on the door, checking their watches, before he went to Lucifer’s room to sleep. Lucifer and Gabriel were dancing with the lights off, the police lights as their disco light.

The family that had called the police were long-gone now, having packed a moving van and gone somewhere better, where people looked at their neighbors with something other than cold indifference.

Lucifer pressed his cheek to the window, watching hungrily as the landscape changed around them. Browns turned into greens, and the harsh, unrelenting blue of the sky was softened by swollen grey clouds that promised the land below it a sweep of rain.

The drive was long- nearly thirteen hours with stops for food included. It would have been unbearable without Lucifer in the passenger seat, playing music and talking, openly flirting now that there was no one around. The flirting and light conversation was put on hold when Lucifer’s face suddenly became grave.

“Michael?”

“Mm?”

“I really am sorry, you know.”

Michael glanced at him in surprise. “For…?”

“That first day you came back.” Lucifer turned in his seat to look at him. “I went too far. It was… it was cruel of me.”

“I didn’t exactly go easy on you either,” Michael reminded him. “Anyway, it’s water under the bridge. We’ve talked this over already.”

“I know, I just…” Lucifer looked back out the window. “It’s hard, watching him… watching him hit you, and you just taking it. I just wish you’d defend yourself. That’s all.”

Michael said nothing.

They stopped for lunch in a diner near the Utah-Idaho border, and took full advantage of the fact no one there knew they were brothers. Lucifer sat next to him in their booth, and they split a milkshake and shared a kiss while they waited for the bill. Michael chose to ignore the looks the other diners gave them, not caring whether they were homophobic or just confused at what made a diner (and not a particularly nice one) romantic.

Then they were back on the road. Michael was used to the green stretches that could be found further north. Lucifer was a lot quieter than he had been before. He barely said anything, eyes wide, finger acting as the metronome for some song Michael couldn’t hear.

Anna’s friend’s friend greeted them like they were family when they arrived at her sizable house. Her house was in a gated community, surrounded by trees. She hugged them both when they stepped out, a brilliant smile on her face that Lucifer matched easily.

They sat together as she made them tea, and Michael took in her kitchen with a sweeping glance. Marble counters, dark wood. The mug she passed them the tea in was grey and cold to the touch, despite the tea inside it. The trees outside gave a soft, shaded light. This was worlds away from their corpse of a suburbia.

She sat opposite them with another smile, and Michael listened politely as her and Lucifer talked. He asked her what Cambridge was like, what the course was like, what the professors and the students were like, what she was doing now. She asked him why he wanted to study it and gave him advice. Lucifer’s eyes were bright as he talked and listened, a slow smile growing on his face.

She took them out for dinner in a restaurant much nice than the diner, and asked Michael some questions about Princeton and what he was planning to do with his degree. Michael answered truthfully- he didn’t know yet.

Her smile grew larger when he mentioned Anna. “How is she?” she asked eagerly, cutting delicately at her honeyed vegetables. “How’s she finding Princeton?”

“She loves it,” Michael said, trying not to pay much attention to Lucifer’s hand, which had been on his thigh for most of the meal. “We’re sharing an apartment next year.”

 _“Lovely_ ,” the woman- Sarah, her name was- said, sounding genuinely pleased.

She gave Lucifer some books when they went back for more tea, and wrote down some numbers of people who could help him with his application and give interview advice. She hugged them goodbye, wishing them both luck and waving goodbye. Lucifer waved back as Michael drove carefully down the dirt path.

It didn’t take too long to find a motel. They dumped their stuff down by the double bed, and as Lucifer began to unpack his pajamas, Michael shook his head.

“Not yet,” he said by the door. “Come on.”

Lucifer raised an eyebrow. “It’s late,” he said, but didn’t protest otherwise.

They got back into the car, Michael driving carefully in the dark until they reached Payette National Forest. He drove down empty roads, Lucifer shooting him a glance every now and then.

“You’re not planning on killing me, right?” Lucifer asked as Michael pulled over. Michael smiled.

“Not quite, no.”

He led Lucifer through the trees, tall and anonymous in the dark, overhanging branches scratching their faces lightly, until they came to a clearing.

They lay down in the waving grass. The sky was vast above them, wild with stars, and the cool wind blew over them, stirring their hair and clothes. He took Lucifer’s hand, pressing it to his lips as his brother watched how big the night could be.

 

*

 

They stopped for lunch in the same diner again the next day. Lucifer sat next to him again, but this time he was filled with questions about their father (why, exactly, Michael had no idea).

“Where do you think he goes?” Lucifer asked, chin cupped in hand as they waited for their food, one leg folded beneath him and the other swinging.

“No idea.”

“Do you think he has a secret other family?”

Michael looked at him in surprise. He _had_ started leaving them home alone shortly after Gabriel’s mother had left for a worldwide orchestra tour shortly after Gabriel was born, the frequency of her letters decreasing until there were no more. Maybe her or Raphael’s mother- or even _Lucifer’s_ mother- had another family that he visited often.

“ _Maybe_ ,” Michael said, awe in his voice at the thought of it. “I’ve never even considered that.” He’d decided not to look the gift horse in the mouth in terms of their father’s absences.

“Do you think he’s nicer to them?”

Their hamburgers came. Lucifer stole a fry from his plate.

“Doubt it. Unless he doesn’t drink when he’s around them.”

Lucifer hummed. “Nah. He’s probably not. He’s always been mean.”

“Has he?” Michael asked, and Lucifer raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, yeah,” he said, sliding the tomatoes out from his burger. “I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t. Can you?”

Michael thought as he chewed on a fry. If he sifted through his oldest memories he could faintly see something kinder. Strong arms wrapped around him. Shattered glass, no shouting.

“I guess not.”

He cut his burger in half, stacking some fries on the cheesy top of the burger before pressing the bun down. Lucifer watched him.

“Why…”

He glanced up as Lucifer looked around, making sure no one could hear them before he leaned in.

“Why do you think he hits you, but not me?”

Michael wasn’t too bothered by the question. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t thought about it before. He took a sip of their milkshake before answering.

“Because you look like your mother.”

Lucifer bit on his lip. “But… but Gabriel and Raphael don’t, and they don’t get hit.”

“They’re too young. Someone would ask about the bruises.”

“You don’t remember when we _both_ had bruises?” Lucifer asked, and he looked up sharply. There had been a brief, horrible time, around the time he had started hitting Michael, when their father invited his friends around on Friday nights and paid them to fight in the yard.

“Just _hit_ each other,” one of his father’s friends had shouted drunkenly, beer bottle hanging loosely from his thick fingers. Lucifer had looked small and scared, fists balled but feet still. He remembered seeing Ms. Baker pass by, pausing as she saw what was happening before carrying on without another word.

“Swing for each other,” another said, while their father sat silently. The man stood. “Before I do.”

Michael hadn’t been able to move. The man had started moving forward, big hands swinging, and Lucifer’s small fist had landed on his face.

It had only happened once or twice. Three times at most. Michael was surprised Lucifer remembered.

“We were giving each other the bruises,” Michael pointed out. “And that was only a few times. Look,” he said, as Lucifer opened his mouth to speak. “I don’t know. Maybe he just doesn’t like me. It’s not like he’s around enough to dislike either of the little ones.”

Lucifer closed his mouth again.

They split a pecan pie before leaving.

The sun was setting as they arrived back in the neighborhood. Even sunsets weren’t pretty here. There were no leaves on trees to turn from green to gold. Just cramped houses and neglected lawns.

He frowned deeply, hands tight on the wheel as he strained to remember. Another memory he was only catching the gist off. A time when sunsets had been golden, and-

“Michael!” Lucifer shouted.

He stomped on the brake. Ms. Baker was in front of the car, looking alarmed but otherwise alright. She pressed her lips into a thin line before crossing the rest of the way.

“The kids out?” Lucifer asked as Michael pulled up.

“Sleepovers, yeah.”

Lucifer grinned. “Good.”

Why it was good, Michael wasn’t sure- until Lucifer got out the car, unlocking the door and undoing his belt simultaneously. Michael wetted his lips, deciding to leave their bags in the car until later.

He followed a trail of clothes to the bedroom. The belt was left by the door. Jeans by the dining table. Shirt in the hallway.

Lucifer was waiting for him in their bedroom, wearing only his underwear. He’d already shut the blinds.

Michael kissed him, and he wrapped his arms around Michael’s neck as they fell on the bed.

“Love you so much, Michael,” Lucifer murmured between kisses. Michael replied with his lips instead of words, dragging them across Lucifer’s jaw, his throat. Lucifer’s hands reached under his shirt, not taking it off but spreading his cold fingers on Michael’s warm back as Michael kissed him, slowly and deliberately.

He didn’t have time to register the bang of their bedroom door opening before he was dragged up with strong arms.

“What the _fuck?_ ” his father said, and he saw Lucifer’s horrified face mirroring his own before a punch to his stomach sent him sprawling.

He was too shocked to speak, crawling to the kitchen and gasping. “Dad,” he managed breathlessly, clutching his stomach and hearing his father’s footsteps following him. “Dad, it’s not what it- not what it looks like-”

“Don’t you _dare_ try to pull one over on me, boy!” his father roared, kicking his stomach. He could hear Lucifer shouting something from their room. “Get up off the floor, you _fucking_ -”

Another kick. Michael spluttered, and somehow, by some ugly miracle, was able to lift himself off the floor to face their father.

“Dad-”

“ _Don’t ‘dad’ me!”_

His fist swung. Michael’s arm came up defend himself, blocking the punch. His father looked as surprised as he felt.

His dad swung again, and again he blocked it.

He couldn’t block the third one. His back collided painfully against the wall, sparks dancing in front of his eyes.

“ _Stop!”_ Lucifer cried as his father moved forward. He was haphazardly dressed, and his hands dug into their father’s shoulders, pulling him back while Michael blinked and waited for the dizziness to pass.

A loud _smack_ echoed through his ears, and Michael looked up, mouth hanging open as Lucifer’s left cheek turned red. Lucifer’s mouth was hanging open too, and Michael remembered that it had been years since someone had hit him.

His father lifted his hand again, and Michael saw red. With a roar he charged at him, pushing him away from Lucifer and sending him flying across the dining table.

His father lay on the kitchen floor, confounded for a moment amongst the chair that he’d knocked over in his fall. Michael was breathing hard, Lucifer’s hand curling in his. Seeking comfort.

If it had been a movie, their father would have left the house shame-faced, never to return. Maybe he would have gone to fight him, but stopped, seeing the resolve in Michael’s eyes as he protected his brother. Or maybe he _would_ come back one day, sober and kinder and full of apologies.

But life, of course, is not a movie.

Their father stood slowly, and Michael steeled himself.

It didn’t help. It never did. He tried to block the punches again, and even tried to swing one of his own. His father brushed it away as easily as he could have swatted a fly and carried on punching- his face, the sides of his head, his stomach. He felt the bones of his nose shatter, and his skin tear, blood dribbling down his cheeks like tears. But even as his knees gave away beneath him, and even as Lucifer screamed, running out the house ( _where?_ his brain asked silently, still worrying for his brother), he still clung to consciousness. Even as his father gasped lowly, seeing his eldest son lying on the floor. He watched his father through his swelling eyes, every nerve in his body screaming in pain, nothing coming from his mouth but a bloody gurgle.

His father swore, backing away from his limp body. He heard the front door slam and the revving of a car as consciousness slipped from his fingers, leaving him in a heap on the kitchen floor.


	5. Half Light II

_He was five. His father’s fist had never swung for him. Whiskey was liquid sunshine, captured in his father’s glass._

_“Michael,” he had said when Michael padded down the hall in bare feet. He had been tucked into bed two hours ago, but he couldn’t sleep._

_“Daddy,” Michael yawned, and he was scooped up onto his lap. There was a photo album open in front of him._

_“Do you know who that is?” His father’s finger pointed. He stroked the short nail thoughtfully as he blinked. His father pointed at a woman with dark hair, just like him. His father was next to her, arm around her, mouths open in laughter as they looked at each other._

_“That’s mummy,” Michael whispered. His father sipped the liquid sunshine._

_“It is.” He turned the page. There was the woman again, thinner and tired, but happy. She held a baby with a shock of dark hair in her arms._

_“Is that me?”_

_“It is. When I met you, your hand was even smaller than it was now.”_

_“My hands are not small!” Michael said, and laughed as his father tickled him._

_“Yes, they are! But they’ll grow.”_

_He turned the page again. There was another woman, cold and beautiful, holding an even tinier baby. She wasn’t smiling._

_“Do you know who that is?”_

_“Lucifer’s mummy,” Michael said, sucking on his bottom lip._

_“And who’s this?” He pointed to the baby, its eyes tightly shut, a whisper of golden hair gracing its small head._

_“That’s Lucifer,” Michael said in an awed whisper. “He’s_ tiny _.”_

_“He was, just like you. And he’s grown too- you and your brother. But he’s still small. You have to protect him, and love him, and he’ll love and protect you, too.”_

_“For how long?” Michael asked._

_“Forever,” his father whispered. Then the sunshine slipped through his fingers, crystal tinkling on the floor prettily._

_“Oh, no,” was all his father sighed. He stood, lifting Michael._

_“Come on. You need to sleep.”_

_“I can walk, daddy.”_

_“I know, son. But the glass could hurt you.”_

_Michael looked over his father’s shoulder as his strong arms were wrapped around him. He laced his arms around his neck, watching the broken glass lie in the last of the dying light._

*

 

“The doctors said he would wake up soon.”

The golden voice of his youngest brother. He struggled to open his paralyzed eyelids. He wanted to see him, see the hair the colour of honey, eyes the colour of dusk, lips stretched in his permanent smile.

“Perhaps.”

He knew that voice, too. The earthy tones of his second youngest brother, a mature voice for one his age. He wanted to cry with how much he needed to see him, calm brown eyes in soft brown skin. He loved them, loved them both so much. Maybe he was dead. Maybe this was his punishment for daring to leave them all behind.

The youngest voiced his thoughts, perhaps confirming the theory. “Does- could he die?”

Of course he could die. He was probably already dead. Death’s appetite was never satisfied, and their neighborhood was no stranger to falling victim. Why would he be allowed to live where grass wasn’t allowed to grow? Where babies died in their cots, teenagers in the streets, and parents were left with haunting stares? Why would Death see him lying on the kitchen floor and let him live?

“No,” another voice replied quickly. It was strained, close to tears. “He can’t die.”

 _Lucifer._ Why was he sad?

He needed to make him happy again. He needed to wake up.

But that was hard… it would be so easy to slip back into those precious golden memories. To let himself slip away entirely.

A hand cupped his forehead. It was cool and firm, and he followed it up.

His eyes opened, covered in fog that he blinked slowly away. Raphael was a blur above him, palm still resting on his forehead as he smiled down in the gentle manner of a benevolent god.

He heard a catch of breath. A creak as Gabriel leaned forward.

“Is- is he-”

“He is,” Raphael murmured. Michael’s heavy eyes swung to him. His form was still fuzzy around the edges. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Michael.”

He eagerly drank from the straw Raphael placed between his lips. Careful hands helped him sit up.

Michael looked around the hospital room. There was an IV in his arm, and his finger was hooked up to a machine that was bleeping out the sound of his heartbeat.

Gabriel was sitting on the windowsill, teeth worrying his bottom lip. Lucifer was crumpled in a chair in the corner of the room, knees under his chin. His face was deathly pale, apart from the red around his eyes.

“This-” he broke off coughing, voice hoarse from use. Raphael quickly held out the straw again, and he took a gulp of water. “This all looks expensive.”

Gabriel laughed, and the room felt a bit brighter. “My god, Mike. That’s the only thing you have to say?”

“Not the only…” he trailed off, trying to move his legs under the sheets. They felt like lead. “Am I… am I paralyzed?”

Raphael put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You’re not. Don’t worry. The feeling will come back. And dad had us all on insurance, so don’t worry about that either.”

“They put you in a med-i-cal-ly in-duced coma,” Gabriel said, pronouncing the words delicately as he moved from the windowsill to Michael’s bed. He sat, hugging Michael carefully. “I thought that meant they were killing you.”

“So I’m really not dead?”

Gabriel and Raphael laughed at that. Lucifer remained silent, still hugging his legs.

“You’re alive, Mike,” Raphael said warmly, brushing his hair back from his damp forehead.

“You would not be _lieve_ the crap we’ve been eating,” Gabriel said, playing with Michael’s limp fingers. “Ms. Baker- you know, the one down the street- keeps bringing these _awful_ casseroles.”

“I nearly ran her over,” Michael said faintly. There was a pause- an awful, horrible pause. Lucifer bit down on his lip, hard enough to draw blood.

“Course, Lucifer hasn’t been eating her casseroles,” Raphael said, breaking the awkward silence that had fallen. “He’s barely eaten at all. Gabe gets him something from the shop downstairs sometimes. He’s been at your side, Mike.” Raphael squeezed his shoulder again. “Day and night.”

Michael smiled weakly at Lucifer. It wasn't returned. Lucifer just stared at him, a hint of desperation in his reddened eyes.

Michael licked his dry lips, opening his mouth to tell Gabriel and Raphael to get something from the shop, seeing that Lucifer wouldn’t talk until they were alone. Then a thought occurred to him.

“Where’s dad?”

 

*

 

He wore a black suit, though he’d been unconscious for the funeral. His brothers wore black too. They’d been present at the funeral- except for Lucifer, who’d stayed with him in the hospital.

He cried when they reached the mound of dirt that covered his father’s body. He cried, and sank to his knees, and pushed his fingers into the cold soil. Raphael knelt next to him, his arm around Michael’s shaking shoulders while he sobbed. Lucifer and Gabriel stood nearby uneasily. Gabriel was chewing his lip nervously, teeth tearing at the skin. Lucifer was still pale, his eyes still rimmed with red.

A speeding car had knocked down both Michael and his father. Chuck Shurley had gotten the worst of it. Michael hadn’t fared well either. He’d suffered from broken ribs, a punctured lung, head trauma, and a beat-up face. But unlike Chuck, he had lived.

That was the story Raphael had told in his calm, earthy voice, punctuated by offering Michael sips of water and rubbing his back while Gabriel curled at the end of the bed. Lucifer had remained silent in the hospital chair.

Lucifer had told him the real story the night he got released from hospital, the night before the four of them visited the grave. Gabriel and Raphael were asleep in their room. Lucifer hugged his knees on the end of their bed, rocking backwards and forwards while he spoke through his tears.

He’d driven down the street in their father’s car after leaving the house, looking for someone to help them. When there had been no one, he decided the town would be the best bet. He’d turned at the end of the street, speeding down, when he saw their father in the middle of the road.

Lucifer didn’t swerve. Chuck didn’t move. They stared at each other as the car got closer, closer, and-

The advantage of living on a street where a father could make his sons fight in the yard without anyone stopping him made itself known. Lucifer put their father’s car in the garage. He dragged Michael out onto the road by their father, crying all the while, before calling the police to report a crime.

Only one person saw him. Instead of reporting him to the police, she brought casseroles to their house.

“Stop crying Luce,” Michael murmured when Lucifer was done. Lucifer was sobbing at this point, words barely audible. Tears were slipping down his own face as he crawled across the bed to his brother, wrapping an arm around his shaking frame and holding him close.

“But now you’ll hate me,” Lucifer managed, clinging to the front of Michael’s pajama top and burying his face into his neck. Michael pressed his lips into his hair.

“I could never hate you,” he whispered.

It seemed as though he was the only one mourning their father. Even as they knelt by the fresh grave, Raphael’s face was dry. Gabriel was just nervous. Lucifer looked the most upset after him, but not for the same reason.

The police hadn’t done much, Raphael told him as they walked home. The speeder had gotten away, and with no witnesses other than Lucifer, who’d been too distraught to remember even the colour of the car, there wasn’t much they could do.

He’d met Lucifer’s eyes briefly at that.

They had a somber meal at home, of a less-than-good chicken casserole, warmed in the microwave.

They curled up on the sofa afterwards, all four of them. Gabriel was on his lap, touching the bruises on his face with a light and curious finger. Raphael was on one side of him, head resting lightly on his shoulder. Lucifer was on the other, fingers laced with Michael’s under the blanket Gabriel had brought, their feet touching.

He fell asleep during a Simpsons rerun, and woke early the next morning still on the sofa, a cushion under his head, the blanket thrown over him, and Lucifer asleep on the floor, still clutching his hand.

He sent Raphael and Gabriel to bed early that day, after spending the day in front of the television again. He took the money he’d set aside and put it on the kitchen table, legal pad in front of him.

Lucifer leaned against the counter, watching as he counted the money. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t much.

“I have no idea what we’re going to do,” he whispered. He buried his head in his hands. “I’m going to have to drop out.”

“What?” Lucifer said sharply. “Why?”

Michael laughed hollowly, gesturing to the money on the table. “This is pretty much all we have, Luce. There’s not many other options. It’s not like I can leave the other two here come September. Or even all three of you.”

Lucifer said nothing.

He set his pen down when he realized there was no point in pretending he knew what he was doing. He looked up at Lucifer calmly. “I’m an orphan now.”

Lucifer shifted. Worry fleeted across his face. “I know.”

He looked back down at the shapes on his legal pad. “One parent a drug addict, the other an alcoholic. Both dead.”

“Michael…”

He looked up. Lucifer’s face was crumpled, eyebrows drawn together.

Someone knocked on the door before he had a chance to speak again. Lucifer went to answer it.

“It’s Ms. Baker,” he called, unconcealed panic in his voice.

Michael opened the door, Lucifer behind him.

Ms. Baker had yet another container of casserole in her frail hands.

“Luce, go get the other container,” Michael said, and Lucifer backed away gratefully.

There was a pause as they looked at each other. Her deep brown eyes gave nothing away.

No one spoke until Lucifer returned with the washed container.

“The people who killed my boys got away with it,” she said. She spoke quickly, like she had been holding onto the words for a long time. Michael felt Lucifer press against his back, breaths short and scared.

“The police didn’t know where to begin,” she continued. “Both times. The people who did it just drove away. I don’t know who killed them. I don’t know even whether it was an accident. They were both killed just a few streets away from home.”

Michael took the container off Lucifer, holding it tightly. “Ms. Baker…”

She held up a hand to silence him.

“They were good boys,” she said, her thin voice shaking slightly. “Good boys. Your father… I didn’t know him well enough to pass judgement on whether he was bad or not. But from what I saw, he wasn’t good.”

She took the empty container from him, passing him the full one.

“I won’t need that container back,” she said. She looked at Lucifer. “And I won’t tell anyone about what I saw that day.”

Michael felt Lucifer breathe out properly, breath washing over the back of his neck.

“Thank you,” Michael managed to say without stammering. “Thank you, thank you-”

She held up a hand again. “I’m moving tomorrow. I’m getting out of here while I still can.”

She turned, walking away with the gait of an old woman, and then looked over her shoulder, expression unreadable. “I suggest you do, too.”

 

*

 

Michael watched on with something like awe as Anna opened her trumpet case, the polished brass reflecting gold in Gabriel’s eyes.

“Move, Mike,” Raphael said with a laugh as he brushed past him, his schoolbag hoisted on his shoulders. He’d been practically skipping around since they’d arrived in New Jersey.

Anna patted Gabriel on the head, passing him his backpack. “I’ll show you how to play after school, yeah?” she said, and Gabriel pouted but nodded.

People had been surprisingly helpful since his father had died. The veteran he’d worked for called him to tell him that he’d help with anything Michael needed. Michael had thanked him, and rang back the next day to tell him that he’d smashed his car into a tree. The veteran fixed it, no more questions asked. He’d passed Michael a six-pack of beer as a sympathy gift. Michael had thrown it in the bin once he’d left.

Molly had started silted conversations during their shifts, though her eyes flickered away when they met his. His manager had avoided looking at his bruised face, asking if he needed any more time off and giving him a sizable bonus in his next paycheck.

Only Anna hadn’t treated him differently or awkwardly, hearing the unspoken relief in his voice when he told her his father was dead. She’d already moved into their apartment, and told him over the phone that bunkbeds would fit quite easily in her room.

“No- Anna, that wasn’t what I- that’s too much to ask-”

“It’s not,” she told him. “Don’t worry, Mike. I really don’t mind. I’ve never had brothers before.”

Money would be tight, but they would manage. He and Lucifer both got work in the same grocery store- he was part time, his hours arranged around his classes, and Lucifer was full time. When their hours overlapped Lucifer would spin his chair (they had _chairs_ ) to smile at him.

Anna shared a room with Gabriel and Raphael. She didn’t complain, but she agreed readily when Michael suggested they get an apartment with three bedrooms when their twelve-month lease was up.

Lucifer shared his room, of course. They had a double bed, but for the first few nights there Lucifer curled up so closely it may as well have been a single.

Michael waited for him to return from his shift one night, about two months after they’d moved. He thought back to the day they’d climbed into their dad’s fixed car, ready to make the journey.

“Will I like it there?” Gabriel had asked. Lucifer had been unsmiling and pale in the passenger seat, probably remembering what had happened last time he’d been in the car.

Michael had met Gabriel’s eyes in the rear-view mirror as they passed Ms. Baker’s empty old house.

“You’re all going to love it.”

He sat up in bed as Lucifer came in, still in his shop uniform. He flashed a grin at Michael as he toed his shoes off.

“How was your shift?” Michael asked. Lucifer collapsed on the bed.

“An old man gave me his newspaper to read,” Lucifer said, his hand tugging on Michael’s pajama top. Michael didn’t lie down next to him. He shifted so he was above him instead, arms resting on either side of his face.

“Was it interesting?”

“Not really.” He laced his hands around Michael’s neck, and Michael leaned down to kiss him sweetly. Lucifer kissed him back before turning his face slightly. Michael lifted his head to look at him again.

“How are you?” Lucifer asked quite seriously. It was a question he had started asking him frequently.

Michael smiled down at him. He cupped his cheek, thumb stroking backwards and forwards.

“I’m good, Luce,” he said. Lucifer returned his smile, and pulled on his neck, pressing their lips together again.


End file.
